Are You A Digital Native?

As a millennial, the internet is my second home. It’s when I’ve found friends, journaled, reflected and grown into myself, and entertained, learned, and developed my professional and spiritual self. I truly love that I was born in this generation and am a digital native.

But I have run into more than one person who are Christians and mostly from an older generation that tell me this “digital” part of my life is a bad thing. In some conversations, it has even been deemed a sin.

Sometimes the Internet is where I go to hangout with friends. Where we once had mall rates, now we have World of Warcraft clans, LAN parties, and tweet chats. I’ve done Bible studies and discipleship as well as participated in online worship as well as watched sermons online.

The internet is also where I do my Christmas shopping (Amazon is my best friend for presents). We hardly go into Walmart for full carts of shopping, instead using Walmart’s only grocery program. It’s also where I complete my budgeting and tithing.

People talk about what life is without the internet. I honestly cannot comprehend what pre-computers was like.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not dependent on it and I certainly need to monitor the amount of noise in my life due to these activities. In fact, a week or two without it on vacation sounds intriguing. Yet, people make my generation out as complete slaves to the digital ecosystem.

How do I disprove them? Go without it for a month? A year? The rest of my life? I couldn’t do my job. I’d be a terrible church tech volunteer. My communication with my wife would suffer.

I wouldn’t be able to do what God intended of me for this life. I believe with my whole heart. I don’t know what life without the internet is like and that’s okay.

I’m unapologetic about this.

The Shift In Perception

To the person who complains and tries to shame me about the internet, you don’t know life without cold milk or electricity but you don’t see us complaining at you or asking you to go without those luxuries. Get off your high horse. Instead of seeing things as different and therefore evil, why not ask questions and see what we are actually doing for the Kingdom of God?

To those who have been shamed, take inventory to see if you are overusing it. If you are, make the appropriate corrections. If you aren’t, either show them how their suggestion actually is against the spirit of how God has created us or, if you need to avoid the confrontation, shake dust off your sandals and keep moving forward shame free.

What do you think about digital natives and it’s impact on Millennials and later generations?

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Jeremy Smith

I am a blogger, clinical counselor, gamer, and someone who loves to pushback so you can create the very best thing possible. I blog exclusively about church technology as a senior staff writer at ChurchMag as well as about life in general on my personal site JeremyGrantSmith.com. You can also find my eBooks on ChurchMag Press.

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I’m in that rare bubble in the fact that I do remember life before Amazon, Facebook, and YouTube content. As someone who relies on the Internet to make a living then it’s absolutely important to me but it’s also important to have balance.

Like you said “…take inventory to see if you are overusing it. If you are, make the appropriate corrections.” We have to have some human interaction. It’s how we are wired. I joke with my wife a lot about not needing real friends when I have my “Internet friends”. But I make it a point at least once a week or every few days to go off the grid and just relax. No Netflix, no phone, no Internet of Things… just me and often times a book and my coffee. That’s how I like to disconnect.